LIGNIN AND CELLULOSE DECAY

I have a 20 lb slab of petrified wood that has evolved into an heirloom.

It was a constant presence in my grandparent's house throughout my childhood, occupying one dark corner or another. When my grandmother passed away, it went to my brother, and spent some years in his dark corners.

When my brother died 11 years ago, I took the petrified wood from his house. I now keep it near the bushes outside my front door-- I figure that given its history, it can bear the elements.

All of which leads to an obvious question: Why the fuck are the Rolling Stones releasing a new CD next month?

Next week on the Tongue: all Stones, all the time...

MOULDERIN'

If Younger Me had read the sentence "Bob Mould wrote scripts for the WCW from 1999 to 2001" Younger Me would have body slammed my cassette copy of The Blasting Concept and pile driven it into oblivion.

Older Me thinks it's so uncool that it curves around and almost touches cool.

Almost, but not quite...

SING, SING A SONG

The spontaneous group sing-along is an odious moment whenever it pops up in movies-- I remember the hard-to-articulate rage that swelled up in me the first time I saw "The Big Chill."

But when it actually does happen spontaneously in real life-- especially when the main participants are a bunch of kids unaware of the beaten H'wood trope-- it's, um, kind of magical.

My nine-year old niece and 13-year old nephew were visiting over the weekend, and in a discussion about their favorite thises and thats, we lapsed into a group version of "All Together Now," with my six-year old daughter and two-year old son making a game effort.

We slid out of the moment as easily as we had entered into it and moved on, but part of me is still there...

UNLOADED

Oh, sweet nuthin', I ain't got nothing at all...

OK, one thing. I was in a meeting today, and two people were searching for a final appropriate word to finish a thought. They landed on the same one simultaneously, and it was certainly not the most obvious word given the context of the discussion: cohesion.

So, cohesion y'all, until next week.

1974

This was wearing a rut in my brain today:

"You got your fuel lines/And a handful of ludes"

No earthly idea what put it in my brain, but it's a nice snippet of poetry. And just when I was thinking "Did you steal that from Iggy, you fucker?" I took a trip to the island of misheard lyrics, and saw that it's actually "cue lines" (queue lines?), which is definitely more Bowie style. Instead of being industrial cool and coolly abstract, it's more just antiseptic and abstruse. So I say again: fucker.

1974, REDUX


The Ramones knew it; Don Kirschner knew it; the little boys and girls of '74 knew it; I'm not sure if Bob McAllister knew it. "Saturday Night" was like a really sweet day at elementary school, where you started the morning by acing a spelling quiz, and closed out the day by stealing a kiss from the boy/girl of your wee heart's desire.

I had to call in some serious markers, but I negotiated a day off from Sunday school to watch the Rollers go all tartan on "Wonderama."

And it was clear that this stuff was becoming my church anyway...

P.S., I LOVE YOU. WELL, ACTUALLY...

I've always liked the idea of Patti Smith, but I've never really hooked in to the reality of Patti Smith. I heard "Ask the Angels" today and it was great. Her voice moves from earthy to commanding to mannered at all the right moments; I love how she pronounces "wild" so you can hear it as wild, why yield, or white heat, depending on your mood; and if that "and rock and roll is what I'm born to be" ending doesn't mean anything to you, then chances are you weren't.

Maybe it will click into place one day...

PEEP

The new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is perfect music for running yellow lights. That moment when your pulse quickens a bit, your foot hovers between the gas and the brake-- maybe twitches once or twice-- and then you opt to give it the gas. It feels slightly transgressive, but it's all within the letter of the law...